First local housing regs. Many of the things wrong with the suburbs and exurbs are not the result of free market forces so much as single-use zoning regs, minimum parking requirements, and uncapped mortgage tax deductions. Communities that evolve more naturally are often walker friendly with a greater mix of shops and housing rather than just vast stretches of ‘burbs with occasional mini-malls. On the micro level, the local governments sometimes make inexplicable decisions like Metro offering free parking on inauguration day. That will obviously lead to even more demand for the lots and provide no incentive for those who live in walking distance to leave the car at home. Oddly enough even people who oppose universal healthcare seem to believe in a right to free parking. That said, I do tend to think that contracts can lead to neighborhoods with discriminatory policies even without any government policies. I think such policies can slip in much the way anti-competitive cartels can.
The other area where I give them so credit is the war on drugs. I’m perfectly happily with heavily regulated tobacco companies and even tougher regs, but I wouldn’t support a ban. I do see Democratic candidates saying some good things about criminal justice reforms and focusing on harm minimization strategies, but at the national level we’ve been largely unwilling to take on the ‘war on drugs’ to the degree that we’ve been willing to take on the ‘war on terror’ (could have done more there too obviously). Thus I’m a bit worried that the proposed Attorney General, Eric Holder, supported mandatory minimums for drugs. Hopefully that’s not his current stance.
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